Kaplan,F. The Wizards of Armageddon. 1983
Kaplan, Fred. The Wizards of Armageddon. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.
452 pages.
When the first atomic bombs were dropped in 1945, an elite group of
"defense intellectuals" realized that the implications of nuclear strategy
were enormous, but also bizarre. It became obvious that given the power of
only a few well-placed bombs, even a first strike by one nation would leave
sufficient retaliatory power with the other, and would therefore prove
suicidal. Thus began the intellectual discipline that produced our cold-war
lexicon: missile gaps, megadeaths, deterrence, mutually assured destruction,
game theory, and limited conventional warfare as an alternative to nuclear
stalemate or destruction.
On the beach in Santa Monica, California, the Air Force contracts began
flowing at Rand Corporation in 1948, from which a cult of self-appointed
wizards issued forth over the years. All of them were "thinking the
unthinkable," trying to second-guess the Soviets. More often than not,
they melded esoteric mind games with their egos, as they jockeyed for the
attention of Pentagon generals. In the end, the author believes, nothing
was accomplished except that both sides now have tens of thousands of
warheads instead of dozens or hundreds, and missile technology has vastly
improved delivery. In retrospect, it seems that Rand should have spent more
effort on disarmament studies -- even if only as a sop to public relations.
ISBN 0-671-42444-0
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